Quintessence
by sunlethe
Summary: Levi and Mikasa: Humanity's Strongest in parts. Collection
1. contents

**Quintessence**

/ˌkwinˈtesəns/  
 _noun_

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"a refined essence or extract of a substance."

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 **Humanities Strongest in bits and pieces**

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 **parts:**

i. Soldiers

ii. Smoke (Mirror)

iii. Contingency

iv. Spring

v. Iridescent I


	2. i

**soldiers**

 _He's a soldier._ Bound by greater duty and tethered to tainted soil.

He can't provide her with palaces or luxury–can't give her heart certain, fretless refuge. All he has to offer are the wounds spanned across his back (spoils of countless causes, both fruitful and barren), and the bloodstains on his cloak (and soul) that no amount of cleansing can ever make pure.

He offers her uneasy farewells, heavy kisses, what-ifs and near-misses.

Loving a soldier is a tiresome feat; and it wears down the heart and soul faster than a steel blade blunts.

He knows this better than anyone–and so he convinces himself that it's poison in disguise; a handicap; a liability. He stabs every intention down to the very core–kills it off mercilessly by the roots. Heroes like him aren't entitled to storybook romances (where bliss outweighs the heartbreak–where death can be cheated beyond the final pages). All that awaits him are textbook memories and statistics (how nobly he's torn himself apart for humanity's cause; how many titans he's slain with his skill and his sword).

He can't love her… _no_. It would be cruel of him to make her love a soldier. To have her wait on a soldier. To have her cry for a soldier. _To have her shatter over a soldier._

It would be far more heartless than having never loved at all.

But she's a _soldier_ , too. (And it makes things easier–and it makes things worse.)

She drags home the stench of war; the empty eyes of loss. She scrubs her soul raw, and stitches herself together through gritted teeth. She might not need castles, but he wishes he can provide her safety. Her heart beats worn and strong, but he longs to have it tucked away and cosseted.

She always kisses too hard, always holds him like a vice in her arms.

Maybe they're both just love-weary and battle-weary (too fed up with losing to lose any more).

Soldiers in love with fellow soldiers; it's the equation for tears and madness.

But it hardly matters during the nights they spend holed up within humanity's stronghold, wherein they can afford to convince themselves that they're a little more cleaner, a little more deserving, a little more human. Because they're soldiers…and the only semblance of worthiness presents itself outside the call of duty.

And each morning they wake up tangled and tangible is enough for now. Enough to have him willing to wager that a soldier's love for a fellow soldier will be worth it (in the end).


	3. ii

**smoke (mirror)**

She hates him in all his marrow-deep complexity—from the sting of his words, to the balm of his touch.

Sometimes he kisses her and it's all teeth—all _bite_ —and there are always nights wherein the nightmares would rob her of sleep, and she'll stay up till the crack of dawn, wondering why she lets him. In retrospect, it's the more tender ones that disgust her (the way his mouth seals over hers—ambrosia; venom; honey; _fire_ —as he holds her with paper-gentleness, buried deep in the motions of toe-curling adagio, planting ghosts of kisses instead of marks where his lips decide to wander).

Standing at five feet and two inches, Lance Corporal Levi is a being made of smoke and mirrors…always either _one_ or the _other_. He's mastered smoke down to a discipline: shrouding his true emotions and intentions, weaving sheets of it over off-hand words and gestures. To Mikasa, he's but a code that needs to be cracked (and punched in the face, for good measure), and all their late night rendezvous are only puzzles she fumbles over towards solving the bigger conundrum.

Or at least that's what she tells herself.

Sometimes she wonders if she's only solving herself—piecing herself together (who am I? What am I? Why am I?) moments before reaching the white-hot edge wherein he always wants her to look at him with eyes drowning in constellations; sapped of pride and barriers and— _almost_ —animosity.

She always sees herself in him, and the resemblance runs deeper than the gear-bruises and the burdens their names both carry. Mirrors— _her mirror_. He's the reflection she's always refused to see, too wrapped up in the faces and safety of others.

It doesn't change the fact that she hates him (or at least she thinks she does). If anything, the parallelisms only serve to fuel that 'hatred' further, and it shows in the angry gnash of her lips and the dig of hips against his. To which he obliges because he yearns for the roughness and the urgency just as much as she does. They make quick work of each other—as is usual for these kinds of nights. Neither decides to bother with pleasantries, and all too soon they're stripped down to precision, limbs twining in his sullied sheets, swallowing one raw sound after another with each scratch, each thrust, each mark.

Once they've unraveled, the room wreaks of musk and clumsy breathing, during which he pulls himself out of her. Mikasa finds herself caged within his arms—the arms of a stubborn code she just wishes to be done with—and, like always, she pushes herself up to leave.

This time, he doesn't relent, and after a good amount of squabbling—and a generous amount of hands playing sonatas on her damp skin—she gives in. _Just this once._ His touch lulls her to sleep; her steady breathing his lullaby.

She hates him in all his marrow-deep complexity—but it doesn't change the fact that she's drawn to him, this man of smoke and mirrors, and she'll carry on searching for him (and herself) under the skin and sheets. And maybe even deeper past the liquid-fire and gravitation, she'll find that there's more to it than hate.


End file.
